ABSTRACT

Were the 1970s really `the devils decade'? Images of strikes, galloping inflation, rising unemployment and bitter social divisions evoke a period of unparalleled economic decline, political confrontation and social fragmentation. But how significant were the pessimism and self-doubt of the 1970s, and what was the legacy of its cultural conflicts?
Covering the entire spectrum of the arts - drama, television, film, poetry, the novel, popular music, dance, cinema and the visual arts - The Arts in the 1970s challenges received perceptions of the decade as one of cultural decline. The collection breaks new ground in providing the first detailed analysis of the cultural production of the decade as a whole, providing an invaluable resource for all those involved in cultural, media and communications studies.

chapter |28 pages

Introduction

Cultural closure or post-avantgardism?

chapter |28 pages

The politics of culture

Institutional change in the 1970s

chapter |21 pages

Cultural devolution?

Representing Scotland in the 1970s

chapter |30 pages

Finding a voice

Feminism and theatre in the 1970s

chapter |23 pages

Artifice and the everyday world

Poetry in the 1970s

chapter |24 pages

Apocalypse now?

The novel in the 1970s

chapter |22 pages

Boxed in

Television in the 1970s

chapter |18 pages

Stepping out of line

British ‘new dance' in the 1970s

chapter |24 pages

A diversity of film practices

Renewing British cinema in the 1970s

chapter |19 pages

Blood on the tracks

Popular music in the 1970s

chapter |19 pages

Up against the wall

Drama in the 1970s